Posted 4:49 PM by Gene

Two teeny-weeny record labels have turned out anthologies of Broadway songwriters that will sell a thousand copies combined and remind us again the musical's dead, as if we needed it. Harvey Schmidt composed The Fantasticks in 1959; his last show (not counting several miscarriages) was Celebration in 1969. Charles Strouse wrote Bye Bye Birdie in 1960; his last hit was the aggressively mediocre Annie in 1977; his last eight shows have run a combined 105 performances. Jerry Herman isn't here, but he should be; his last show was the badly dated La Cage aux folles in 1983. Schmidt was born in 1929; Strouse in 1928, Herman in 1933. We do not forget the recently deceased Fred Ebb's partner John Kander (born in 1927), nor Jerry Bock (born in 1928), nor Sheldon Harnick (born in 1924). Anthologies like these are depressing because not only do they tell us how our cultural stock has depleted itself, they tell us that the musical is of another age, and possibly another galaxy.